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I started to learn this piece and find it easy enough, well the 1st mov. anyway, but it gets difficult playing from bar 77 were the arpeggios come in and trying to voice the top note in RH and bottom in LH.

Has anyone played this or is practicing it can help me with advice on how to play this piece to perfection and any other sonatas to try ?? Thanks

Mark_C
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Registered: 11/11/09
Posts: 21045
Loc: New York

This was one of my first Beethoven sonatas, and I played it at my first recitals. It's great that you're identifying the issue that you're talking about. Like with many things, recognizing it is half the battle.

Before talking about anything more involved like how to practice it, it might be good first just to say what's the basic thing that has to happen:

You need to make the outer fingers (i.e. 4th and 5th, the fingers playing the main melody in each hand) stiffer than the other fingers when you play those notes.

I rarely see it put this simply, but that's the basic way in general to bring out a voice when the hand is also playing other notes.

Were you seeing it that way, or is it sort of something new? If it's new, how about just trying to practice it a few times with that in mind, and see if you don't feel on the right track right away.

An additional thing is to sort of "throw" the hand in the direction of those outer notes. That helps. But making those fingers 'stiffer' is the basic thing. And also, don't keep the fingers stiffer except just for an instant when hitting each note, because otherwise they'll get tense and tired.

ChopinAddict
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Registered: 08/29/09
Posts: 6449
Loc: Land of the never-ending music

Mark is right, and in order to do this (strengthen your outer fingers) you could also try some of the Dohnanyi exercises that serve this purpose. I didn't find that passage particularly difficult, and I think I owe this to some previous practice.

_________________________

Music is my best friend.“Haters don't really hate you. They hate themselves because you are a reflection of what they wish to be.” ― Yaira N

Mark_C
Yikes! 10000 Post Club Member
Registered: 11/11/09
Posts: 21045
Loc: New York

Originally Posted By: ChopinAddict

....I didn't find that passage particularly difficult....

.....and let's see....I found it to be somewhere in the border of difficult and not difficult. It's like what Yogi Berra said about playing baseball (and which hasn't become one of his well known quotes but it should be!) -- It's one of the easiest ways to make a living if you really work at it.

It took a lot of attention and work, but with serious attention and work, it wasn't that hard. But no matter how much I worked at it, I needed to concentrate hard on this issue every time I played the piece, or else the passage would just be kind of blah.